TIM Pinney accused Helen Smart and Anita Knittel of all sorts of things in his blinkered defence of the farmers and the meat-eating public (You Say, September 27).

Presently, giving the vast choice of food - foreign and home grown - eating meat is a matter of choice and although I am partial to a bit of meat, my body will function perfectly well without it.

I don't know if the two ladies in question are suited for a farming career. However, in view of the BSE crises, where stock was fed on cheap composite food, it proved that some farmers - with the help of supermarkets - put their business acumen before their animals' welfare.

I think our present government is responsible to put what is left of our farming industry back on track. But let us not forget that this problem started way back with the successive Conservative governments of the 80s and early 90s.

MR L SPITERI,

Worcester.